Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:43 pm on 3 March 2020.
Yes, but the point I'm making there is, you're concentrating on the marginal change not the overall amount that's given to them, and in the overall amount that's given to councils, Cardiff is below both Flintshire and Wrexham. So, you concentrate on the marginal change, not the overall settlement, which is the point I was making.
As I was saying, investment in housing can also support the Welsh economy and local economies, and I hope that this settlement—capital and revenue—can support authorities to increase the scale and pace of social house building across Wales.
So, in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would like to note the ongoing positive work on the distribution formula with local government. This year, in addition to the information published alongside the provisional settlement, my officials have been working closely with the distribution sub-group to produce a table that seeks to explain the variances in the allocations. This has been published alongside the final settlement so that each authority can see and explain their allocations. I do take Mike Hedges's point, and I will explore whether we can publish the actual calculations as well, as I do think the more the transparency, the better.
The annual changes to the formula are agreed each year between Welsh and local government through the finance sub-group. This means we are confident that we deliver an equitable and objective distribution of the funding available. I want to reassure all areas of Wales that there is no deliberate bias or unfairness in the formula, as was pointed out very ably by Mike Hedges, in pointing out which authorities were the biggest and smallest gainers across the settlement, and to suggest so is unfair to those who engage so positively in the work to deliver it.
I've previously offered Assembly Members to attend technical briefings from my officials to understand how the settlement formula works in practice. Take-up of this offer to date has been very disappointingly low. I am more than happy to re-offer this to Members in the Chamber to ensure we can constructively debate the issue in question rather than misinterpreting the technical details of the settlement and what it does or does not do. I commend this very good settlement to the Assembly.